The Curvature of F₂^p(x, Q²) as a Probe of Perturbative QCD Evolutions in the small-x Region

Perturbative NLO and NNLO QCD evolutions of parton distributions are studied, in particular in the (very) small-x region, where they are in very good agreement with all recent precision measurements of F_2^p(x,Q^2). These predictions turn out to be also rather insensitive to the specific choice of the factorization scheme (MS or DIS). A characteristic feature of perturbative QCD evolutions is a positive curvature of F_2^p which increases as x decreases. This perturbatively stable prediction provides a sensitive test of the range of validity of perturbative QCD.